China went on a wide-ranging charm offensive today to show the world it is open to the internet and is in fact the biggest victim of hacking attacks.
The heartfelt pleas for understanding began the day after Google threatened to up sticks from the world's most populous country after complaining it had been targeted by …

we know they're the victim of hacking attacks...

really?

It seems somewhat ironic that the nautral assumption of the average American is that an attack originating from China must by default originalte from the Chinese government. I say this because the everage American seems to fear their own govenrment as much as they fear things such as terrorism (You only need to shout Obama-Care in a crowded room to se this), I also say this because the average American seems to ascribe super human powers to their own govenrment. It knows all, it sees all, and it blows up large chunks of New York in order to get it's hands on Irai oil (so say the 9.11 truther brigade).

Well, I hate to burst your bubbles, but cyber attacks form China are more likely to come form private companies trying to pinch industrial secrety, or from angry young computer hackes lashing out at the world, than from the Chinese government.

Equally to burst your bubble a lot of the attacks that are said to come form China appear to come from Taiwan. Which is an independent state over which the Chinese governemnt has little or no power. Taiwan has been independent of China for about 50 years.

title

Okay...

Yes

It does, and various other Communist states have supported private industry at points in their lifetimes (I believe Hungary was supportive of it, for one). Every so often, a communist government realises that peasants aren't too motivated when asked to work 14 hours a day in state-owned factories for a pittance (which was, in part, why the Soviet economy was, in short, a piece of shit).

Anyway, you can blame private companies for stuff, and the communists always need more things to blame.

FUD alert

At first I thought PerfectBlue might just be a moron or counter-culture type, but by the end of his final paragraph it becomes obvious he's a Chinese government spokesperson. Certainly it's not secret they have a small army of forum trolls attempting to create dissenting ideas out there, but I don't think I've met one before.

Anyway, the obvious complete and total misunderstanding of America and the free world in general is well in place. People disagree with their government in a democracy, that's how it works, we get to have our own ideas. You should try it some time, really, you'll be a much happier person for it. It doesn't mean you fear the government or think it has supernatural powers, it just means you're critical of what it does in an attempt to better the end results. It's a good thing. Just because your only motivation with regard to your (Chinese) government is crippling fear doesn't mean ours is.

As for this false idea that we have no evidence and are jumping to conclusions because of a general mistrust of government. First: it's not government we mistrust, it's CHINESE "government", and the list of reasons for that would require a significant college-level history class to cover.

Second, this isn't an arbitrary kneejerk reaction that causes people to believe it was the government of China, though you've done well to attempt to label it as such so casually, this might make the random passerby actually think it's not a fact in dispute. Google has stated that the command and control they traced for these trojans was in blocks of Chinese government IPs. So I hate to burst your bubble, but that means the computers used were inside the Chinese government. I'm sure they let randoms off the street in to use their computers for days at a time all the time, right?

Lastly. Taiwan, seriously? The Chinese attacks on Taiwan "the evil empire we have no control over" are absolutely hilarious. You need a well indoctrinated crowd to pass that off. Maybe you're too brainwashed to see, but trying to pass that off to people who are actually allowed to know history and current events is just ridiculous. Yeah, Taiwan did it, and they did Tiananmen Square and 9/11 too! Hitler was a Taiwanese, read all about it in the latest book published by Mao, the world's most established scholar on all subjects... or was that Kim Jong-Il?

that's odd...

"According to the agency, foreign industry spokesperson Jiang Yu told reporters that "China's internet is open" and the country had tried "creating a favourable environment for internet"."

Just logged on to a Chinese server. Youtube: nope. Facebook: nope. Yousendit: nope. The last two redirect to baidu, with as primary result themselves. But when you click the link, you get redirected to baidu, with... and so on. Maybe they want to get the stats up on their Chinese Google equivalent :-)

They are after me too

If you look through your web logs (depending on how good various FW/IDS are) you will see any number of "attacks" in the form of Nessus scans, woots and such. Many of these come from China, Eastern Europe, Russia, But also UK and USA. And this is for our 2 man consulting compnay!

I dont howver think this means I am being systematically targeted by any specific regeine. I just think that there are a lot of script kiddies about.

meh

Google: brave warrior for freedom

It's about time for Google to issue their next PR statement: after "serious" and "productive" talks with the Chinese government they've decided to stay, for now... in hopes of advancing the cause of freedom and privacy...

I wonder if Google and the Chinese government scripted this whole exchange in advance.

Diplomacy

I think the most interesting thing about this is it's the first (significant) instance of a Company acting like a Country and doing diplomacy about a matter of principle. As predicted in lots of good modern sci-fi/near-future fiction. (as well as Hamilton's stuff with bad sex and zombies)

"properly guiding internet opinion"

LOL

The most monitored nation and they can't find the hackers?

Every InterNet connection, even individual hotel rooms (since just before the Olympics), are monitored for on-line activity.

Any claim by China that they can not trace this hack is a complete lie. I travel to China regularly and the only uncensored/unmonitored InterNet connections are available through satellites and very illegal terminals.

Furthermore, few facilities exist, outside government institutions, to execute an attack of this magnitude.